Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion another writing sample--what do we think?

You see what I did there?

Not really. I mean, I get the Lake Wobegon reference. But anyway.

I think 22B is being wry by making up a reverse Lake Wobegon effect and suggesting there's a tendency among us here to underestimate our children's abilities.

Well, I think that it depends on the state, the school district, the school and the specific classroom. I would also venture to suggest that a fun fiction sample is not the most relevant sample to judge by. You should look at how he answers literary typed questions and science/social studies/health type questions

Having made all those qualifications and based purely on our local experience, I would say that your DS' fiction sample is good for middle of K and okay for middle of 1st. However, it may or may not bar entrance to a tracked/GT 2nd classroom for the next year. In my school, that decision is not made until the end of the year. The fact that your DS is stronger in other areas would probably pushed him over but the writing would probably place him in the lower half of our previous tracked/GT classroom, which is not true GT but only about top 15%. Do keep in mind that your DS may really take off in the second half of K so the writing itself should probably not deter an acceleration if you are already set on it.

Speaking about my DD9, Irena, I make a point to lightly discount any rote, mindless teacher criticism of fresh, exciting work. That is, I might say, "Well, it's true that you didn't include a topic sentence as your third sentence, and that's what you're supposed to do. So, next time, do that. But this is still a great paragraph. It's so exciting because...and I love how you..." That is, if anyone is trying to suck the life out of her excitement about writing by turning it into "Insert tab A into Slot B" exercises, I remind her that that stuff isn't really what good writing is about. Fortunately, she has only had one teacher like this.

Quantum2003, entrance to the GT magnet (starts in gr 2) available to my kids is typically by IQ score only. However, we are discussing alternate options for DS. His current teacher would like to put him in grade 1 part-time right now (pending a meeting with the principal next week), and there was some discussion of a skip, but it appears this is unlikely due to school admin. Next year he is very likely to spend at least some time in grade 2--not sure if gen ed or GT. I lean against a full skip to GT magnet grade 2 in part because I do feel he would be in the bottom 10-20% for writing there with these skills. But I may be misremembering what the other grade 2 kids were doing.

I agree with Quantum2003. The only thing that matters is what writing looks like in your DS's first grade class. What are their expectations as far as written responses, etc?

DD's school places a lot of emphasis on the content of what they write. They are expected to write very short stories with events in a sequence. These kindergarten kids write very well using inventive spelling despite sometimes not being able to read (which blows my mind). Handwriting is another story. There is a huge range of that. From what I can tell, they all seem to start writing as well as your DS sometime between K and 2nd. It just clicks. I have just been blown away by writing development in DD's school--DD included.

I don't know, because he's not in first, and DD attended first elsewhere (and was in another category re writing). There's a confusing factor here in that his current K teacher teaches general education, and the gen ed population is quite poor and pretty low-skills. She considers him outstanding in writing for K. But the kids who will one day join him in the magnet--note, 98% of these kids do not currently attend the school with him-- are a pretty different story.

ultramarina, when it comes to K writing, I've seen a wide range from posh private schools to Title I schools to affluent public schools since one of local malls used to do an exhibit of Mother's Day letters by K students from all over the city. Your son's writing would be considered advanced for K in any settings except at GT schools where it might not stand out one way or another.

Overall, if you think your DS would be a good fit at the magnet school without skip, then the wise strategy seems to be advocating for subject acceleration for the remainder of this school year as well as next year.